Wright house thwarts wrecker's ball

Potential buyer opts out of deal

One of the last homes built by Frank Lloyd Wright has dodged a potential encounter with a bulldozer and is back on the market.

A buyer who intended to knock down the $1.1 million ranch home in Bannockburn walked away from the deal, according to the property's real estate agent.

"The buyer reneged, and the home is back on the market," said Mimi Bass, a saleswoman at Koenig & Strey Realtors in Deerfield. "I'm showing the house again."

The buyer, Norman Singer of Deerfield, failed to show up at the scheduled closing on the house earlier this month, which allowed the agent to put the property up for sale again.

Singer, who wanted to demolish the house and build a new handicapped-accessible structure, had sought a demolition permit from the village last month.

He declined to comment. "Ideally, we can find a buyer who isn't planning on taking it down," Bass said. "We tried that for 14 months to no avail. But it's not over until it's over. The seller would really like to sell it to someone who would live in it."

Assisting in those efforts are preservationists at the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy, who got involved after learning about the plan to destroy the house, which was built just before Wright died in 1959.

"Ultimately, you like to find buyers of these properties whose love is in preservation and want to maintain the building," said Ronald Scherubel, the conservancy's executive director. "We're doing all that we can to find one."

Bannockburn Village President Michael W. Grutza said trustees also would consider strengthening the village landmark ordinance to protect the Wright house from being razed by a future buyer.

The 3,000-square-foot house has landmark status but is not protected against demolition.

Before the scheduled closing, Singer had seemed open to the possibility of keeping the house intact if he could find a different house on a 4-acre lot, according to Scherubel.

Conservancy officials also offered to move the Wright house--brick by brick--to an alternate location if they could raise the funds for the costly project. But finding such money might prove difficult, and it could take time.

Scherubel said he hopes whoever buys the house will want to preserve it.

"We would have been happy to deal with the current owner or a new owner as long as they were open to finding a solution to saving the building," he said.